Strike Over

After a third day without subways or buses, amidst the threat of incarceration of its leader, Roger “Rosa Parks” Toussaint, the Transit Workers Union agreed to return to work and continue to negotiate a contract, ending the three day walk out.
Timed as it was to hurt the City, during Christmas week, and implemented out of panic probably because union officials feared the most militant factions of their own union rather than because of the perceived need for barganing advantage, this strike will go down as one of the great pointless endeavors in labor-management history, though each worker is out 6 days pay, the union is out $3 million in fines, and the City lost around a billion dollars in business.
Management (few people seem to realize that our Metropolitan Transportation Agency is actually a creature of the State– rather than the City– government) also mishandled this… it appears that 16,000 pending disciplinary actions against a 36,000 member union is… excessive, perhaps? Retirement at 55 takes on a different perspective if large numbers of union members die in their 60’s from work-place contracted conditions… And frankly, a decision to try to protect one’s working terms and conditions is not “thuggish” (though, frankly, the choice to do this over Christmas week in a city with so many businesses dependent on holiday sales, was). (Question: why couldn’t this union make the case for its actual grievances? The lack of public sympathy for the strikers was palpable, and frankly, it was staggering.)
So… faced with crippling fines and jail terms, the union seized on an initiative by state mediators, and decided to stanch the bleeding and return to work– having gained exactly nothing from striking– also out of panic.
And there you are. A local radio station said it best: nothing says the holidays like an MTA strike.

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